Some time later…

..strolling around..

I payed a visit to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, and apart from the horrible fried smell that surrounds some areas of the city centre, it is relatively small and compact, and revealed itself as an opulent and wealthy one far beyond my immagination.

I started thinking on why was this city hit by such clamorous fortune? ports with similar conditions abounded along the North sea cost, equally good located and moderately defendable.

As always it’s just chances that make history and it’s chances that helps who investigates it…so by chance I picked up a book on modern sailing era and there I found one of the answers…

we have to go back to the 17 th of August 1585. The stage is the city of Antwerpen. An Italian, the Duke of Parma Alessandro Farnese leading a Spanish army captures the richest town in the Lowlands, but by then the majority of the wealthy merchants of the city had already fled. Where had they gone? yes, you are correct…mostly Amsterdam!

The newly arrived merchants invested large sums in seaborne trade, greatly stimulating the economic growth of the city.

From the April of 1595 exploration voyages were routinely organized by competing traders, The Grand Pensionary in 1602 in order to stop the fierce competition between merchants associations, responsible for the fall of prices of spices, ordered the creation of a private company in which existing associations merged the so-called VOC. This new company then established the Amsterdam Bourse, the first to formally trade in securities.

Initially the company followed the Portuguese trade, acquiring in 1605 the foothold of a fortress named Victoria on Ambon island one of the Molucca islands previously owned by the Portuguese. In 1609 the VOC established a factory at Hirado, Japan. In 1617 the company opened a factory at Surat, India, In 1621 Banda islands were submitted in order to avoid shortages of Nutmeg and in the same year a fortress was founded of the coast of Taiwan.

..as always some  luck and  dauntless  people  make it,,,